Third-period surge sends Big Blue to victory

SALEM – After Swampscott broke open a tie game in the third period, beating Lynn last night, 5-2, the last Big Blue player off the Rockett Arena ice was sophomore Ryan Cresta, lugging all the water bottles for use by his teammates.Click here for a photo gallery.Not an unusual task for an underclassman, but certainly an unusual assignment for a player that scored two influential goals in Swampscott’s second straight victory.”I had to go clean up the water bottles,” Cresta said. “(The seniors are) trying to keep me humble, for sure.”Humility shouldn’t be an issue with Cresta as he did all the little things to help the Big Blue succeed – forechecking aggressively, working hard to create space in front of the net for deflections and rebounds, and being aware of his teammates’ offensive opportunities.”I’ve been working on skating with the puck, shooting and stick-handling, all of the little things that make a big difference in the end,” said Cresta.The diminutive forward started a run of four straight goals late in the second period, grabbing a mid-slot feed from Noah Maercklein and, while gliding to his left, sending a wrister into the low right corner of the net.”He’s started to finally shoot the puck low,” explained Swampscott head coach Gino Faia. “He’s got a hard shot, he’s getting the puck on the net and we’re starting to see some results.”Then, after a brilliant third-period defensive play from Nunzio Morretti turned into a short-handed goal and the lead, Cresta locked up the victory when he deflected Joey Silva’s right point blast into the open left side of the net.”Last year, I shot a lot of high pucks,” Cresta said. “I was missing the net and wasn’t scoring as much as I should have. This year, Coach sent me a message to keep pucks low and it’s worked so far.”Despite owning the positional battle most of the night, Swampscott trailed twice in the second period on opportunistic goals from Mark Brazell, one a shorthanded score.But the Big Blue drew even each time, first on Robert Serino’s seeing-eye wrist shot from the left boards 26 seconds after Brazell’s first score, then on Cresta’s accurate shot.”It just seems like in our first two games, the third period is when we get a sense of urgency and play the way we’re supposed to,” said Faia. “We took advantage of our opportunities, but we’ve got to play three solid periods if we expect to beat teams like Lynn – a physical team that won’t quit.”For Jets head coach Joe Conlon, consistency is also an issue.”We had a couple of decent finishes but we didn’t create enough offense,” Conlon said of an attack that generated just 16 shots, seven coming in the final 15 minutes. “Part of our play is an in-your-face style, but we didn’t do that for 45 minutes. Inconsistent play and too many penalties (five) can do you in.”